When inspecting photomasks or reticles, optics may be used to magnify the image of the photomask and/or reticle so that the image may be analyzed by an inspection tool. The inspection optics may need to magnify the image so that the image details may be resolved on a pixelized light sensor. However, in magnifying the image of the photomask and/or reticle, the image becomes subject to the vector effects of image formation, which may be different from the same effects in the case of the demagnified image generated by the lithography stepper tool, for example. In addition to difference in magnification factors, the image formed by the lithography stepper tool may be formed in the layer of a light sensitive resist, and this image may be affected by multiple reflections occurring in this resist layer. Hence, the magnified image of the photomask and/or reticle may not represent accurately the image from the same photomask generated by the lithography stepper tool, which may make it unsuitable for the purpose of photomask and/or reticle inspection. To this end, generating a magnified image of the photomask and/or reticle accurately representing the image generated by the lithography stepper tool in the resist layer may be essential to the inspection process.